I don’t really enjoy listening to the radio. When I drive my car, most of the time I’ll just plug in my Ipod or drive music-less. I’ll admit that I’ve never sat down and meditated on the reason why, but during my ride this morning, like an explosive release of flatulence, it hit me: Nickelback sucks.

Nickelback

You see, Nickelback is the epitome of how today’s music can be so uncreative. Of course, one could say : but Vic, what about those girl teen angst singers, or bands that can’t take a hint and retire already?

Ok now. Settle down, class.

For argument’s sake, let’s go back to focusing on Nickelback, shall we?

For the few of you fortunate ones who don’t know who they are, let’s start off with the fact that they’re from Canada. Well, all right. To be politically correct, I won’t fault them for that. Nobody’s perfect.

Now that the gloves are off, let’s come out swinging with a fact that most of you DO know : Nickelback songs pretty much all sound the same. In 2003, someone went further by superimposing two of their songs, Someday and How you Remind Me, and made the obvious conclusion that Nickelback sure loves sticking to their format. I mean, how “perfect” is their timing?

I’ve also come to realize that most radio listeners (let’s call them “Raddies”) just don’t listen to the actual lyrics. We can forgive 1950s/60s bands for writing overly simple lyrics like “I love you, and I’ll always be true”, etc. What can we expect? It’s primitive rock, and we should be so happy that we have a benchmark from which we can judge the evolution of present-day music. Which is why lazy contemporary songwriters like Nickelback fail.

Let’s take for example If Today Was Your Last Day. Coincidently, this is the song that almost forced me to buy another Egg McGriddle this morning. By reading the first paragraph, how many inane clichés can you see?

My best friend gave me the best advice
He said each day’s a gift and not a given right
Leave no stone unturned, leave your fears behind
And try to take the path less traveled by
That first step you take is the longest stride

In 6 sentences, we can count 4 “obvious” clichés, with the remaining 2 lines being as deep as most of the stuff that’s come out of George W’s mouth.

As if that’s not bad enough, can we forgive them to go VERSE, CHORUS, VERSE, CHORUS, etc. repeatedly?  How dare they think they can be so creative as to ignoring the very well-established VERSE, VERSE, CHORUS format? I say to them : Balls, my good fellows. Balls.

My theory is that if people were to be constantly exposed to a running microwave oven with a missing front door, the net result wouldn’t be pretty. The same goes for Raddies – the cumulative effect of listening to some mindless radio programming has probably numbed whatever little lyrical prerequisites they had to begin with. How else could some people actually think that they can purge any real meaning from the above song?

After all has been said and done, though, we have to give credit where credit is due: If there’s one impressive thing about Nickelback, it’s their uncanny ability to detect when they’re in the presence of true Nickelback fans.

Cheerio